Carlos Alcaraz reacts during his semifinal match against Taylor Fritz on Friday. Alcaraz will play in Sunday's final against Jannik Sinner, setting up a rematch of their epic, five-set French Open final.Toby Melville/Reuters
During his run at Wimbledon, Carlos Alcaraz has been doing a running gag involving Andy Murray and golf. They’ve played. It didn’t go well.
“He beat me,” Alcaraz said after an early win at his day job. “We’re playing in his home, so it would be really bad for him if I beat him in his home, so I let him win.”
The crowd has been eating this up.
This running dad joke continues to work under one condition. Everyone who hears must begin with the presumption that Alcaraz is unbeatable.
At any given time, only a few athletes can be considered the absolute best. Sometimes, there are none.
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We’re not talking about winning a lot, or even most of the time. We’re talking someone who is so good, so admired, so recognizable, that they have transcended their sport, and often sport in general. Their name has become a byword for unquestioned excellence.
Who’s managed that this century? Lionel Messi. Usain Bolt. Michael Phelps. You could have a good argument about it, but that’s the end of my list.
Roger Federer may be the athlete par excellence of his time, but you never felt he was guaranteed to win anything. He had Rafael Nadal and then Novak Djokovic in his way.
It’s impossible to ballpark how valuable having the best of them all is to a sport, but it’s a lot.
Swimming was not something anyone talked about outside the two weeks of a Summer Olympics until Phelps arrived, and it hasn’t been since he left. In between, millions watched him race a shark.
Alcaraz celebrates winning his Wimbledon semi-final match against Fritz on Friday.Andrew Couldridge/Reuters
Messi’s time as a pro coincides with an explosion of soccer outside its traditional business boundaries in Europe. He doesn’t often speak in English – or speak at all – and he’s still conquered America. How likely does that seem under current political conditions?
Alcaraz isn’t at that “absolute best” stage yet, but it feels like we’re watching him on his way.
On Friday, he played Taylor Fritz in the semi-finals. Fritz is a tennis player out of the 3-D printer – rangy, 6-foot-5, huge serve, moves like a man six inches shorter.
The American played pretty close to the match of his life. All that earned him was being able to say afterward that he’d forced Alcaraz to try.
At one point, after pushing Fritz to either side of the court, then hitting him in with a drop shot, Alcaraz lobbed him. In the midst of rushing backward, Fritz found time for a rueful shake of the head, as if to say, “This guy is trying to kill me.”
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Alcaraz’s only weakness is a tendency to drift off in the middle of some matches. That may be what happens when you feel absolutely certain you can come back. He’s played in 15 five-setters and lost only one of them.
Alcaraz did one of his little drifts late in the second set. For a minute there, you thought Fritz could make it interesting. Nope. It’s not his home, so there’s no need for Alcaraz to let him win. It ended 6-4, 5-7, 6-3, 7-6.
Over in the BBC commentary booth, Andre Agassi was making his (phenomenal) London debut. His judgment on Alcaraz: “This dude sees the Matrix.”
Alcaraz has now gone nearly three months without losing, a streak of 24 straight wins. If he wins on Sunday, he will become the first player since Bjorn Borg to win both the French Open and Wimbledon in consecutive years.
But the magic of Alcaraz is not statistical. It’s not even trophies. It’s an approach.
At a moment when it’s become the done thing to moan about how hard the athletic life can be (try being a hotel maid), Alcaraz never complains. He never looks down. He always looks, sounds and talks like he’s having an absolute blast.
Usually, when you say of a public figure that they are childlike, it’s an insult. But Alcaraz is, and it isn’t. His puppyish approach – laughing delightedly at almost anything that’s put to him – is laid on so thick that it must be genuine. You cannot help but be delighted by him.
Asked later about the secret to his current run of form, Alcaraz gave the sort of answer only he could give with a straight face: “Not thinking about those things. Not thinking about the winning streak. Not thinking about the results at all. Just thinking that this is my dream – stepping on these courts.”
And what about the next match?
“I will have time to play and to think on Sunday.”
Anybody else, your eyes would be rolling so hard they’d be in danger of popping out of your skull. But with this guy, you believe it.
The other greats of this century – Messi, in particular – were able to spin this type of uncanny naïveté into iconism. What you remember best about them is their enthusiasm.
These days, the cool kids of sports are troubled souls. They feel deeply. If they have a tendency to dramatic excess, they know it will be indulged, either online or in the press.
There’s never been a better time for anti-heroes. Most sports are full of them.
But while everyone is drawn to a fractious, complicated character, they rarely fall all the way in love with them.
Djokovic could never figure out that that was why people never warmed to him the way they did to Federer and Nadal. Because those other two didn’t have bad days. They didn’t yell at their box, or pout.
Alcaraz doesn’t do those things either. Were you to turn on one of his matches in the middle of it, it would be difficult to say if he’s winning or losing. He gives off the same zap of energy either way.
In order to get to that Messi-like status he must win a great deal more, and consistently, which will be tough. But in terms of the way he approaches the game, he’s already an absolute all-timer.